May 14, 2025 • 51 mins
Bitcoin is built on the principle of not trusting third parties, but are you trusting someone else's node to validate your transactions? In this episode, Jordan Bravo and Stephen DeLorme explore why running your own Bitcoin and Lightning nodes is crucial for true financial sovereignty. They break down the hardware requirements, software options like Umbrel and Start OS, and how to connect popular wallets to your own node. Plus, news about Thunderbird's new email service and the concerning bankruptcy sale of 23andMe's genetic data.
Show Notes: https://atlbitlab.com/podcast/bitcoin-sovereignty-running-your-own-full-node
00:00 Why You Should Run Your Own Bitcoin Node
00:39 Introduction to The Sovereign Computing Show
00:55 ATL BitLab Sponsorship Information
01:58 Welcome and Contact Information
02:46 News: Thunderbird's New Email Service
06:29 News: 23andMe's Data Bankruptcy Sale
10:15 Main Topic: Bitcoin & Lightning Node Setup
13:28 The Philosophy of Verifying Your Own Transactions
18:00 Bitcoin Node Hardware Requirements
19:07 Bitcoin vs. Lightning Nodes Explained
21:59 Setting Up a Bitcoin Node with Umbrel or Start OS
24:42 Hardware Recommendations: From Raspberry Pi to Mini PCs
26:26 System Requirements and Performance Considerations
34:20 Connecting Wallets to Your Node (Phoenix, Blue Wallet, Sparrow)
38:01 Lightning Node Options: LND, Core Lightning, Alby Hub
40:01 Software Ecosystem Around Lightning Nodes
42:24 PhoenixD for Developers
46:22 User Feedback on Mobile Operating Systems
50:24 Conclusion
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jordan Bravo (00:00):
Why would we wanna go through the effort of
(00:02):
hosting our own Bitcoin node?
Well, it comes down totrust or lack thereof.
If you are interacting with theBitcoin network, you are either
using your own Bitcoin node or you'reusing somebody else's Bitcoin node.
And when you are using somebodyelse's Bitcoin node, there is an
(00:23):
inherent necessity for trust there.
You are trusting that they are one,giving you the correct data about the
Bitcoin network and two, that theyare not spying on your transactions.
Welcome to the Sovereign ComputingShow, presented by ATL BitLab.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is apodcast where we teach you how to
(00:47):
take back control of your devices.
Sovereign Computing means you own yourtechnology, not the other way around.
Stephen DeLorme (00:57):
This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab.
ATL BitLab is Atlanta'sfreedom tech hacker space.
We have co working desks,conference rooms, event space,
maker tools, and tons of coffee.
There is a very activecommunity here in the lab.
Every Wednesday night isBitcoin night here in Atlanta.
We also have meetups for cyber security,artificial intelligence, decentralized
(01:17):
identity, product design, and more.
We offer day passes and nomad passesfor people who need to use the lab only
occasionally, as well as membershipsfor people who plan to use the lab
more regularly, such as myself.
One of the best things abouthaving a BitLab membership isn't
the amenities, it's the people.
Surrounding yourself with acommunity helps you learn faster
and helps you build better.
(01:39):
Your creativity becomes amplifiedwhen you work in this space,
that's what I think at least.
If you're interested in becominga member or supporting this space,
please visit us at atlbitlab.
com.
That's A-T-L-B-I-T-L-A-B-dot com.
Alright, on to our show.
Jordan Bravo (01:59):
Welcome to The Sovereign Computing Show.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and I am recordinghere today from ATL BitLab in the
heart of Atlanta with Stephen DeLorme.
Stephen DeLorme (02:10):
Sup.
Jordan Bravo (02:12):
We wanna remind you that you can write into the show by boosting
with Fountain FM as the podcast client,and you can attach some SATs to that.
We will read your feedbackand suggestions on the show.
You can also send us an email.
That email address issovereign@atlbitlab.com.
That's S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N@atlbitlab.com.
(02:38):
And to see all of the informationregarding this episode, go
to atlbitlab.com/podcast.
Today, before we get into our maintopic, we wanna bring to you a couple
of interesting news items that arerelevant to the sovereign computing space.
The first one we want to talkabout today is about Thunderbird.
(03:02):
And Thunderbird, to remind you is aemail and calendar client by Mozilla
and it's only a client that you downloadand use on your computer, or on your
Android phone, but it has not beena service in the way of like Gmail
or Outlook or something like that.
(03:23):
But they have just announced that theyare now gonna be offering a service and
it's kind of a multi-pronged servicethat they are offering a competing
service to the likes of Gmail and thoseother companies and, they're calling it,
they're calling one of them Thundermail.
So if you, for example, don't havean email address and you want to use
(03:45):
Thunderbird, previously you had to bringyour own email address and email service.
So whether you're bringing in fromGmail or some other more privacy
respecting email provider, you hadto bring your own email provider,
and Thunderbird was just the client.
But now going forward, Thundermail.com is a service that they're
(04:05):
providing, and you'll be ableto have your own domain name.
I, I believe it's Thunder.
You'll have your, yourname@thundermail.com or tb.pro.
They're providing both a freeservice and a premium service.
And the premium service, you get to one,know that you're supporting, um, an open
(04:27):
source and privacy respecting service,but you also get some value add such as,
you know what, I'm not seeing it here.
Stephen, do you see anyof the, the professional.
Stephen DeLorme (04:40):
Uh, let's see.
Pro?
No, I do not.
Jordan Bravo (04:50):
It might be more of a, a future feature that they're
promising to release, but uh, maybein the meantime it's just gonna
be that the free basic service.
Stephen DeLorme (05:02):
Yeah.
Huh.
Interesting.
Pro.
Yeah.
I don't really talk about it a whole lot.
Jordan Bravo (05:10):
But, uh, in any case, the free service is gonna be having
your own email address and server.
They also offer somethingcalled Thunderbird appointment.
It's a scheduling tool that allows youto send a link to someone, allowing them
to pick a time on your calendar to meet.
So this is kind of like Calendly,if any of you have ever used that or
(05:32):
interacted with somebody who's usedCalendly, basically, I can send a link
to somebody, they click it, it takesthem to a webpage, and then they can
schedule themselves on my calendar.
The other thing that they're offering issomething called Thunderbird Send, and
this is a rebirth of Firefox Send, whichwas a service that Mozilla previously
offered, where if I wanna share afile with somebody on my computer.
(05:59):
It's kind of like Dropbox upload or one ofthese other services where you could just
send a link to somebody and they can clickit, open their browser and download it.
It makes it incredibly easy tosend things very convenient.
So the reason I wanted to share thesewith you is because this is a more
(06:19):
private privacy respecting and open sourceversion of some of these proprietary
services that already exists and haveexisted for years with other providers.
Stephen DeLorme (06:29):
I think these are the pro services.
It's like what are the services?
Jordan Bravo (06:33):
Okay, so we'll have to do some more research onto into
which, which of these are providedfor on the free account and which
are provided on the pro account.
As soon as these are publicly available,it might be the case that they're already
available, but I'm gonna do a littlemore research and try these myself.
And then, uh, I'll report back here and,and we'll go over them in more detail, but
(06:59):
I just wanted to bring this to everyone'sattention and boost in or write in and
let us know if you are interested in theseservices, if you've already tried them.
Uh, if so, what you think.
Stephen DeLorme (07:11):
That's pretty cool.
Is Thunderbird stillmaintained by Mozilla?
Well, it must be.
I just saw the Mozillalogo on some of this.
Jordan Bravo (07:19):
Yes, it is.
Stephen DeLorme (07:22):
Well, you know, maybe that's a, a revenue
model that's not Google.
That's cool.
Jordan Bravo (07:26):
Yep.
Mozilla has tried a lot.
They've thrown a lot of things at thewall and not much has stuck except for
their Google funding over the years.
So it'll be nice to see this.
Maybe it'll actually generatesome revenue for them and they'll
be less dependent on Google.
Stephen DeLorme (07:45):
Yeah, and that's cool.
The request for appointmentthing is, uh, pretty cool.
I don't know.
I mean, it feels like, Calendly hasjust been the incumbent player in
the appointment scheduling space andall that, so it would be fun to see
some more privacy-focused brands, uh,looking into that product feature.
Jordan Bravo (08:03):
Yeah, I'd like to give it a try.
I already used Thunderbirdas a client on my devices, so
this might be a cool addition.
All right.
The next item we want to talk about,which is timely, and this is 23andMe, the
company that does A DNA test for people.
(08:26):
This article is from fortune.com andit says 23andMe says "It won permission
from a judge to sell customers medicaland ancestry data. Here's how to delete
yours." And then, um, the detailsare that a US bankruptcy judge ruled,
DNA testing company 23andMe, whichfiled for bankruptcy Sunday has the
(08:49):
right to sell customers medical andancestry data to potential bidders.
Offers will be due on May 7th.
A final hearing will be held in June.
And this is 2025 in case anybodyis listening to this in the future.
But we'll put the link to this articlein the show notes, but I want to give
my quick, uh, opinion on this, and I'vebeen saying for years that you don't
(09:15):
wanna give your DNA to these companiesjust for the kind of novelty of knowing
that you came from continent X, Y, andZ. To me, it just never sat right to have
something so personal that could be usedagainst me by nefarious organizations
as my DNA and my whole genome andputting this in some cloud providers
(09:39):
database, one to be hacked or two inthis kind of exact scenario where the
company is going out of business throughbankruptcy, and now basically they're
selling off all the company assets,including their massive customer database.
So I hope that none of you haveyour data with 23andMe, but if
(10:03):
you do, check out this articleand act now before the deadline,
before they're able to sell it off.
And maybe you can get yours deletedfrom the database before they sell it.
Stephen DeLorme (10:15):
Uh, it might be worth asking.
We actually had a conversation aboutthis at the cybersecurity meetup
at ATL BitLab a few weeks ago.
Somebody asked the question, "Well, what'sthe big deal? Like, why does it matter
if some other company gets my geneticmaterial? What are we worried about?"
Jordan Bravo (10:34):
Sure.
I, I think one that comes immediatelyto mind is that what if your health
insurance company buys this data andnow they can exclude you from coverage
because you have genetic disease X, Y,Z. Or maybe your potential children will
have genetic disease, X, Y, Z becauseyou're a carrier for this particular gene.
(10:56):
And so now maybe they'll developa policy where they're gonna
exclude anybody with gene X, Y, Zbecause it leads to some disease.
And so they would consider that apreexisting condition, and therefore
they're gonna deny you coverage.
So that's just one example of, ofhow it could be used against you.
Stephen DeLorme (11:15):
You can also imagine some future science fiction scenarios
where, uh, you know, maybe if you findthat, uh, I don't know, you have a gene
that makes you more like susceptibleor something like, I've heard that
like there are some genes that playlike greater roles and like addiction
and stuff like that, and I'm, I'm surethere's genes that play roles in other,
like personality types and all that.
(11:36):
So, uh, you know, you can imaginesome minority report, uh, situation
where all advertising is targetedbased on people's genetic profiles.
Jordan Bravo (11:45):
Minority report, or another one that comes to mind is
Gatica, where we you get discriminatedagainst because of your genome.
You know, you're, you're only qualifiedfor this position if you have these
particular genes, or, or you've gotthese particular genes, so you're
disqualified from this position.
Stephen DeLorme (12:01):
Oh, I'm not familiar with that one.
I've heard the name, but never watched it.
Jordan Bravo (12:04):
That's a good one.
You should check it out.
It, it's very like kind of cornynineties, but it's, it's got a really
cool concept where in the future,everybody's genome is, is mapped
and it's tied to your identity.
And if you've, you basically, youhave like a society that's very
cast driven because of your genome.
Stephen DeLorme (12:24):
Oh.
I'm sure there are people out here worriedabout, like that Black Mirror episode
where the, they're like taking people'sgenes and spinning up replicas of their
brains inside of video games and stuff.
But, uh, that was my leastfavorite Black Mirror episode.
I don't think, uh, that's, that'sanything we actually have to
worry about right this second.
(12:46):
Having our entire brainsbeing copyable by, uh.
DNA, that's, that's nothard science fiction.
That's soft science fiction.
But the health, the health insurancething, I, I would agree is probably the
most immediate threat or concern onewould have about this kind of thing.
Jordan Bravo (13:02):
Sure.
And while this one particular thingmight not be a complete end of the
world scenario, it's all about reducingyour digital footprint and becoming a
smaller target and, and having less ofyour data strewn across the internet.
Stephen DeLorme (13:23):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (13:24):
Get those wins where you can, and improve your
digital footprint where you can.
All right, so we're gonna move on totoday's main topic, which is how to host
your own Bitcoin and Lightning node.
Before we talk about thehow, let's talk about why.
(13:44):
Why would we wanna go through theeffort of hosting our own Bitcoin node?
Well, it comes down totrust or lack thereof.
If you are interacting with theBitcoin network, you are either
using your own Bitcoin node or you'reusing somebody else's Bitcoin node.
And when you are using somebodyelse's Bitcoin node, there is an
(14:08):
inherent necessity for trust there.
You are trusting that they are one,giving you the correct data about the
Bitcoin network and two, that theyare not spying on your transactions.
For example, if I've got a clientand I'm gonna talk about like, let's
(14:28):
say Blue Wallet, which is a iOS andAndroid Bitcoin wallet software.
Out of the box, it's gonna beconnecting to a third party node.
Now, they have a system that minimizestrust by having a series of different
nodes that it could connect to.
And these are trustworthy nodes andit's semi anonymized, but at the end of
(14:51):
the day, you are trusting those nodes.
And so if I make a transaction, I amtrusting that it was not intercepted,
and my IP address is not beingcorrelated with those transactions
and sort of doxing my account.
Any additional thoughts onthat particular point, Stephen?
Stephen DeLorme (15:12):
Yeah, I think there's also a philosophical kind of angle
to hosting your own Bitcoin node.
You hear a lot of times this mantrain Bitcoin and the wider crypto
ecosystem of be your own Bank.
And so what does that mean?
I think it goes a littledeeper than just I can send and
receive without a middleman.
(15:32):
There's also being able to verify that themoney that you're receiving is actually
valid and recognized and real money.
So, uh, if you think aboutBitcoin, well, what is it?
Well, it's, it's basically just thisledger, and it's this idea that every
(15:52):
Bitcoin user, which really in this contextis really just anybody, any Bitcoin node
kind of agrees on the state of the ledger.
And that ledger is updatedroughly every 10 minutes.
Uh, and the nodes have tocome to agree on what that is.
Well, if you don't have, youknow, your own node, you're
trusting somebody else's node.
(16:13):
so it's kind of this strange ideawhere you think about it, of like,
you know, let's say somebody sends youone Bitcoin because you're, I don't
know, selling a car or something.
These days that's a really expensive car.
But anyways, somebody's sendingyou a Bitcoin and the little, you
know, wallet interface lights upand says you've received a Bitcoin.
(16:35):
And it's like, well, how do youknow that's really a Bitcoin?
And how do you know that's not just likesome web interface or some, you know,
front end UI that's telling you that youknow your account has been incremented.
You don't actually know unless you'regoing through a Bitcoin node and you're,
you know, validating from the source,from an actual, you know, proper copy
(17:00):
of the ledger that is the blockchain.
You don't really know otherwise,if the money's real or not,
or if the transaction's real.
So I don't want to scareeverybody and well, maybe I do.
I don't, you know, wantto say that, you know.
all websites that, tell you anythingto do with the Bitcoin blockchain are
bad or wrong or anything like that.
But at, at a certain level, you don'treally know for sure unless you've
(17:24):
actually run the Bitcoin node yourself.
So, you know, if you're just startingoff your Bitcoin journey, it's one
of those things where, you know, alittle bit on exchange might be fine.
Maybe you want to withdraw someof that to a hot wallet on, uh,
your phone or something like that.
But if you're getting to the point,you know, where you've got a bunch of,
you know, Bitcoin and cold storage orsomething like that, when you start
(17:47):
having, you know, more and more,uh, in Bitcoin, it's, it might be
worth, it depends on, depending onyour threat model, but it might be
worth it to actually validate thatmoney is real and actually there.
Jordan Bravo (18:00):
Agreed.
And a Bitcoin node is, don't bethrown off by the terminology.
it's not some kind of magical computer.
It can be any computer.
You could be running Bitcoin nodesoftware on a desktop or a laptop.
But typically you want to have itrunning continuously all the time, so
you're gonna be running it on somethingthat you leave plugged in and on 24/7.
(18:24):
And if you think about it, Bitcoinblocks are generated every 10 minutes.
So really it needs to be continuouslyconnected to the internet and on so
that it can be updated the Bitcoinblockchain with the latest block.
And then when you are accessing it froma remote client, like a mobile phone
or laptop, let's say, that it's got thelatest, Bitcoin blockchain information.
(18:45):
So typically you want to be runningit on the same kind of hardware as
you'd run a typical home server.
This could be is something as low poweredas a Raspberry Pi, or it could be a
little bit more powerful, maybe littlehome PC that you leave plugged in.
But in any case, you're gonna get thebest results if you can leave it on 24/7.
(19:07):
We'll talk a little bit more about thehow, but we've been talking about the
Base Layer or Layer one blockchain node.
We also wanna talk about today howwe're gonna, you can host a lightning
node and let's get into the differencebetween the Bitcoin and lightning node,
and also the why of why you might wannaalso additionally, set up a lightning
(19:29):
node in addition to your Bitcoin node.
Now, first, a lightning node.
It requires a Bitcoin node, so a lightningnode is simply additional software that's
running on top of or side by side witha Bitcoin node and a lightning node
basically speaks the lightning protocolso that any two Bitcoin nodes that speak
(19:53):
the lightning protocol can communicatewith each other and send payments back and
forth in what's called a payment channel.
And when you host your own lightningnode with your Bitcoin node, you gain
some major benefits because whilehosting, while you can certainly run
a Bitcoin node on something like amobile device, and there's a lot of
(20:17):
cool apps out there that'll do this.
For example, Phoenix or Zeus, youare making certain trade-offs in
terms of, what is being trustedby that app and that server.
So, uh, we'll get into the nitty grittyof, of about how you would do that
and the different trade offs there.
But similar to with a Bitcoin node,you're really bringing that entire
(20:42):
stack into your own control, and you'regiving yourself the ability to know
and not have to trust that you arerunning, that you've, the amount of
money that you see that you have isactually the amount of money that you
do have and that, nobody else is ableto view or spy on your transactions.
(21:03):
Stephen, any additionalthoughts on running a lightning
node and, and the why of it?
Stephen DeLorme (21:08):
Yeah, I mean, and I'll just, I'll rephrase the why slightly.
I mean, lightning is nice becausepeople can make transactions
that are much quicker and muchcheaper in transaction fees.
You know, it's like a lot of times,you know, if you're just running
a Bitcoin node, maybe you're onlyinterested in on-chain stuff.
(21:29):
You know, maybe you're dealingwith transactions that are bigger
transactions, let's say, um, andmaybe with the lightning node,
you're trying to engage in.
It doesn't have to be smallertransactions, but it very well could
be smaller, more frequent transactions,maybe engaging in value for value stuff.
Again, it's not my place to tell youhow to use your Bitcoin and lightning
(21:51):
node, but just throwing out some examplesthere of of like on-chain Bitcoin
use versus the lightning use case.
Jordan Bravo (22:00):
Cool.
So if we wanna host our own Bitcoin node.
How do we start going about that?
It's gonna depend on your technicalskill level, but if you are somebody who
doesn't want to bother with the terminaland you are completely inexperienced
when it comes to Linux, you'll probablywant to go with a graphical operating
(22:24):
system like Umbrel and Start OS are thetwo that we've mentioned before and we're
going to show those on the screen here.
For those of you just listening, we areat umbrel.com and if you go into the
Umbrel app store, we can, you can seeBitcoin node and it's a one click install.
(22:47):
And when you install this, it's goingto start the initial block download,
which is where it's gonna sync theBitcoin blockchain data, all from all
the way back to the beginning, theGenesis block in 2009, up to the present.
And depending on the power of yourhardware and the speed of your internet
connection, this could take anywherefrom a few hours to a few days.
Stephen DeLorme (23:14):
And then, uh, yeah, I haven't used the latest
versions of Umbrel, but I rememberusing Umbrel like four years ago.
It was pretty easy to set up.
Jordan Bravo (23:24):
The other graphical option is Start OS by Start9.
And similarly to Umbrel, theyhave a marketplace and you
can search for Bitcoin Core.
You'll notice that sometimes it'sgonna be called Bitcoin Core.
Sometimes it's just referredto as a Bitcoin node, but this
is the same exact software.
Stephen DeLorme (23:43):
Yeah.
And for anyone who doesn't knowBitcoin core is like the main Bitcoin
implementation that like the vast majorityof Bitcoin nodes are running Bitcoin Core.
Because it's kind of the default.
Yeah.
It's frequently abbreviated.
Jordan Bravo (23:57):
The other app that I highly recommend installing is called
it's an Electrum server, um, but it,you may see it listed as Electrs.
That's E-L-E-C-T-R-S.
And this runs alongsideyour Bitcoin core Software.
And it's, it's an indexer.
(24:18):
What that means is it, BitcoinCore by default doesn't have the
full functionality that a lot ofapps like to take advantage of.
And so by downloading and installingElectrs after your Bitcoin node is fully
synced, you're going to get the fullfunctionality in terms of being able
(24:38):
to connect a lot of common apps to it.
Stephen DeLorme (24:42):
Yeah, and that should also be on the App store too.
So it looks like Start9 has Electrsand then I think we saw earlier that
they have ElectrumX, Electrs andFulcrum on Umbrel, but I mean, they,
they're all basically Electrum servers.
Jordan Bravo (24:57):
Yeah, they're all, they're all similar.
Although in my experience,Electrs and Fulcrum have better
performance than Electrum X, soI'd recommend one of those two.
Stephen DeLorme (25:06):
Cool.
Jordan Bravo (25:07):
If you're wondering about which of those two, I would
say depends on your hardware.
If you have beefier hardware,go with Fulcrum and you're
gonna get better performance.
But if your hardware is a littlebit more constrained, then Electrs
will perform a little bit better.
Stephen DeLorme (25:25):
Ah, okay.
Jordan Bravo (25:30):
Those are the two graphical options.
But if you are a Linux proficientindividual, or maybe you wanna try running
it on your own server, VPS or home server.
You can run it through a Dockerimage, or you can simply go to one
of the sites, one of the GitHub reposand follow the instructions there.
(25:53):
It's relatively straightforward.
You're gonna have to give it the usernameand password of your Bitcoin Core
node, and then you're off to the races.
Similarly to how Bitcoin Core has todownload the initial, do the initial
block download and build up thatdatabase of the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Electrum server is going to haveto scan the whole Bitcoin blockchain
(26:17):
that you've downloaded, and it'sgonna build up an index that can take
a few hours, but it's a lot quickerthan the Bitcoin block download.
So, however long your Bitcoin blockchaindownload took, it'll take a fraction of
that time, but it will take some time.
Stephen DeLorme (26:34):
Now, it might be worth talking a little bit about ways to improve
this, and like system requirements.
Let me know if I'm getting aheadof, of you here on this, but I think
right now the Bitcoin blockchainis about a terabyte, or I'm sorry,
it's less than a terabyte in size.
I think it's like six or 700 gigabytes.
(26:55):
And about four years ago, the kind ofrecommendation was that if you want
to run a Bitcoin node on, say, like anUmbrel, you are supposed to plug in a
one terabyte hard drive, like minimum.
I wonder if that's still the case orif the requirements have gotten more.
Jordan Bravo (27:16):
I currently run a home server with a 1 TB drive SSD, and I've got
the six to 700 gigabyte Bitcoin blockchaindata as well as these Electrum servers,
uh, 100 to 200 gigabytes of index data,and it's running very smoothly for me.
(27:39):
So I would say you can still runa completely unpruned, Bitcoin
node with one terabyte drive.
Stephen DeLorme (27:47):
So then that's good then.
But yeah, it is something to keepin mind that like it is gonna keep
getting bigger and bigger and as you.
Because you, you bring a good point thereis it's not just the blockchain, it's
also like the index and all of that.
So you will eventually reach a point,I'm not saying it's critical right now,
but you will reach a point where itwill get to be too, uh, small, like, I
(28:09):
don't know, maybe another four years,something like that, eight years.
I don't know.
But it might be the sort of thingto think about that if like you're
just starting from scratch right now.
Maybe, maybe two terabytes,but I don't know.
I might be getting way ahead.
Jordan Bravo (28:22):
Yeah.
Two terabyte drive will giveyou years of space to grow.
The other option, and maybe youwere alluding to this, is you
can enable the pruning feature,
Stephen DeLorme (28:32):
Yeah.
Pruning is great.
Jordan Bravo (28:32):
for Bitcoin Core and pruning will, throw out
some of the older block data.
It'll, you can give it a parameterof however many megabytes or
gigabytes you wanna constrain it to.
And then anything above that, itwill simply throw it away and not,
it won't take up space on your drive.
Stephen DeLorme (28:49):
Yeah.
And you could do something like,you know, I, I only want to keep,
uh, six gigabytes of Bitcoin data.
That's great, because you'restill validating from block zero.
Like the, the node is still goingback to the Genesis block and
it's checking every single block.
But once it hits its maxlimit, it starts throwing away.
It's like first in, first out.
(29:09):
It, it starts throwing out theblocks that it doesn't need
anymore once it's validated it.
So you can save a lot of space that way.
I think another thing maybe too, likesystem requirements, because like,
I think when I was, you know, now Ijust usually do Bitcoin nodes on like
VPSs personally, but, or back whenI was using Umbrel, I had like a SSD
(29:31):
hooked up with like USD, uh, USB 3.0.
And, uh, I've heard thatapparently the SSD really actually
speeds up performance a lot.
I, I, which I was really surprised by.
I would've thought that the bottleneckwould've been the, you know, one
gigabit per second network cablegoing from the computer to the router.
(29:54):
And I would've thought, uh, thatwould've been the bottleneck, not
necessarily the, you know, that itwouldn't really matter if the SSD was
capable of, you know, writing data at afull three gigabits per second because
it's bottleneck something before that.
But, I, I've at least heardreports that it's way, way faster
downloading the blockchain to theSSD as opposed to a spinning disc.
Jordan Bravo (30:17):
Oh, yeah.
I, I can confirm I've done bothand the processor speed affects it.
The SSD versus like a spinningdisc, hard disc affects it.
And that's because it's not thedownloading that's the bottleneck,
but rather the validating it, whichis a processor intensive task.
Stephen DeLorme (30:38):
Mm.
Jordan Bravo (30:38):
And then writing that to disc is also very, um, I/O intensive.
So you have both an I/O boundfor, this is sort of a software
engineering speak, but like you havea bottleneck both on the I/O part of
it and on the processing part of it.
Stephen DeLorme (30:54):
Mm. Yeah.
And I think Bitcoin Core is like, itwaits until one block is validated,
before it downloads the next one.
I think is how that works.
So if you, even if you have a reallyfast internet connection, if it's
validating them slowly, it's basicallythat's preventing it from asking for
the next block and downloading it.
So yeah, I could see how the,the CPU validation would add
(31:18):
a good bit of time to that.
And then, yeah, if it's having tolike write some data to the disc, then
check it and then write it again or,or whatever it's doing, then, the hard
drive time would take a lot there.
So yeah, all things to consider.
Jordan Bravo (31:32):
The, the upshot of that is that I have personally found that
a Raspberry Pi, for example, a Pi 4specifically, it could run a Bitcoin
node at a reasonable enough performance.
But when I added a lightningnode on top of that, it became
(31:53):
the UX became really bad.
It was just too much data to process.
And so I would say if you're onlyinterested in running a Bitcoin node,
then a Raspberry Pi 4 or greaterprocessing device will be sufficient.
But if you are gonna put a lightning nodeon top of it as well, you're gonna want
some slightly more powerful hardware.
(32:13):
We're not talking aboutanything crazy here.
Raspberry Pi 4s are very low powered.
So something as simple as like an I3processor for, you know, you might
recognize that this is like whatwould come in a really cheap laptop.
Stephen DeLorme (32:27):
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Bravo (32:27):
But like, that's gonna be plenty sufficient for
a, a Bitcoin and lightning node.
Stephen DeLorme (32:31):
Yeah.
We had a lightning node, a workshop,how to build one at AtL Bitlab a couple
years ago, that Packet Protector taughtand he, he set everybody up on the Start
OS and he had these like computers.
He was pointing everybody toonline that you could order.
They were pretty cool becausethey were like just these
kind of business computers.
They were, you know, originally Dellor I can't remember what brand, but
(32:55):
they're originally meant to just like runwindows, whatever version, and, and be
kind of a affordable business machine.
They're very small form factor,like, you know, half the size
of a laptop, maybe smaller.
They were, and they were super cheap and,you know, they had processing and RAM
capabilities much greater than a RaspberryPi, because they weren't built for like,
(33:15):
you know, kids hacking on IOT devices.
They were like built for likepeople to actually, you know, do
business productivity stuff on.
So yeah, you don't need like a fullon supercomputer just to get something
beefier, uh, than a Raspberry Pi.
It.
Jordan Bravo (33:30):
Totally.
And I highly recommend those.
Go on, you can get them used on eBay.
You know, businesses will buy thesein bulk and then sell them, so
you're getting it only slightly used.
Like Stephen was saying, theycome in these, they call them
mini PCs, mini form factor PCs.
Sometimes they're called one liter PCs.
But they're these little things aboutas big as a router and it's a full on
(33:55):
PC, and HP, Lenovo and Dell all makeones that you can get for a hundred,
150 bucks with really decent hardware.
And this is, these will be plentyto run, not only your Bitcoin and
lightning nodes, but all kindsof other self-hosted software.
So if you're interested inrunning any kind of stuff at
(34:17):
home, these make great devices.
Alright, so once you've gotten your homeserver or VPS, however you wanna run it.
And you are running Bitcoin Core.
Maybe you're also running yourElectrum server and you're
running your lightning node.
Actually, let's set aside thelightning node for a second, but
you've got your Bitcoin Core andElectrum server running, what do you
(34:39):
do to take advantage of that now?
Now, what you can do is you go intoyour client software and three of them
that come to mind might be PhoenixWallet on mobile, Blue Wallet, also on
mobile and Sparrow Wallet on desktop.
And these three all take advantage ofthe Electrum server protocol, so they
(35:01):
can all talk to your Electrum server.
And you're going to go into the settingsof those wallets and there's a specific
section where you can just copy pastethe address of your Electrum server.
Once you've done that, you'll noticethat sometimes you might have to
restart the app, but once you do,you now know that your wallet is
(35:23):
only talking to your own nodes.
So all of the data that it's gettingabout the Bitcoin blockchain and
about any transactions is talkingto your own node so you can rest
assured that nobody else has seen yourtransactions and you all those, those
transactions are being fully validated.
Stephen DeLorme (35:39):
Yeah.
Spare is a really, really goodone for, well, almost anything.
I mean, a lot of people love itfor multisig and cold storage, like
interacting with their hardware wallet.
And it's, it has a lot ofadvanced functionality.
It's kind of almost like becomethe, the Swiss Army knife of
making Bitcoin transactions.
And that Blue Wallet I thinkis, uh, super easy to use.
(36:01):
I think it's a good choice for likea hot wallet or something like that.
Your, your first hotwallet, Phoenix, I stand.
Phoenix is definitely one of my favoritelightning wallets, so it's cool.
You can point it at yourown Electrum server.
Jordan Bravo (36:14):
Yeah.
Phoenix is my number one recommendationfor people who just wanna get
into lightning really quickly.
It's got great UX and you don't haveto host your own lightning node.
This is one of those apps wementioned where it's a node is
actually running on the phone.
But by hosting your, pointing it atyour own Electrum server, you get
(36:34):
sort of the, almost the best of bothworlds, because the nodes running
on your phone and you're, you'regetting your own validated data.
So you're getting like, I would say 90+percent of the benefits of running your
own lightning node, but without havingto also manage your own liquidity.
Stephen DeLorme (36:52):
Oh, this might be a good moment to point out real quick
that Phoenix is back in the USA.
They were pulled off the App Storeswe mentioned in some previous episode
that the Phoenix had gotten, uh, orhad had decided voluntarily to pull out
of the US app store out of, you know,some, I guess, regulatory concerns.
But I guess those concernsare, uh, no longer an issue.
(37:13):
So they're back in the US sodownload it, give it a shot.
Jordan Bravo (37:17):
Yeah, that's right.
So it is currently April of 2025 as we'rerecording this and last year in roughly
the same time in 2024, Phoenix, likeStephen said, they pulled out of the US
app stores because of regulatory concerns.
But they're back now.
So if you have not tried out Phoenix,I encourage you to give it a shot.
(37:38):
You can get it on Google Play or the AppleApp Store, or if you have listened to
our recent episodes about alternative appstores, you can also just go to Obtanium
and you can add Phoenix's, GitHub repo,and you can just download it from there.
Anything else you want to add regardingBitcoin nodes, lightning nodes, or, uh oh.
(38:01):
Before I forget, if you are runningyour own lightning node, in my opinion,
the best remote control for it onyour mobile device is gonna be ZEUS.
So I wanted to make sure togive it, shout out to ZEUS.
ZEUS has the ability to run its ownlightning node in the phone, in the
app, but I think, it also shines asthe best remote control app where you
(38:25):
can point it at your own lightningnode and control it from your phone.
Stephen DeLorme (38:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
I guess we didn't really get intothe lightning stuff too deep.
Um, which we can if you want.
We didn't really get into like thenode options for that and all that.
Jordan Bravo (38:40):
Let's do that.
Let's talk about what the optionsare, if somebody is in the
Umbrel store or the Start9 store.
Yeah.
And they're looking at the differentlightning nodes, what are the
options and what are the trade-offs?
Stephen DeLorme (38:52):
Yeah.
So let's see.
Actually, it's been a while sinceI've looked at, uh, the Umbrel one.
Ooh.
So this is nice.
It looks like when I was usingUmbrel, it looks like they did not
have Core Lightning, but they nowhave uh, Core Lightning, and then
they should have LND somewhere.
Well, they have Lightning terminal.
Oh, so they just call it Lightning Node,run your Personal Lightning Network node.
(39:14):
So I'm like 99% sure that'sreferring to LND, which is like
the, the one that was, is like kindof maintained by Lightning Labs.
Uh, then you've got CoreLightning on here as well, which
is like Blockstream's version.
And they also support, uh, Alby Hub.
Alby Hub is kind of a custombuilt, lightning wallet.
(39:35):
I think it was built with LDK, butthat's all under the hood stuff that
doesn't matter, but to most folks.
But yeah, you can also run Alby Hub.
That's a fully functional lightning node.
And then I think the rest of the toolsI'm seeing on this page are just more like
tooling and stuff for interacting withyour lightning node, but Core Lightning,
LND and Lightning Node and Alby Hub arekind of the the primary options on Umbrel.
Jordan Bravo (40:01):
Yeah, and this is one of the advantages of hosting your
own lightning node is you get totake advantage of all of this other
great software that's out there thatcan run on top of a lightning node.
So something that comes to mind is LNBits,which is a web UI for managing various
lightning accounts, and there's all kindsof really cool additional plugins for it.
(40:23):
So you could, for example, add, uh, youcan use Nostr Wallet Connect and you could
be zapping people, fully self-custodialwith your own lightning node.
You could add, like Stephen said,Alby Hub, and then you can plug
into your podcast software and bedoing boostagrams with podcasting
2.0, all on your own lightning node.
(40:44):
So there's a whole ecosystemof software that works in
conjunction with lightning nodes.
Stephen DeLorme (40:48):
And Start9 it looks like, has the same options.
LND, Core Lightning and Alby Hub.
I, I haven't really heard a bigself-hosting story around the Async.
But I, I think the reason is because,uh, Async is, uh, a lightning node made
by the same people who make Phoenixand a lot of time Async is like, well,
there's a big, the biggest lightningnode on the network is the Async node.
(41:11):
And I don't think many people run theserver version though, boost in, and
let me know if I'm wrong about that.
But most of the people whouse Async software use their
Phoenix wallet, their mobile.
Jordan Bravo (41:22):
Yeah.
And we should say that the Phoenix,that the node that you can run for
Phoenix on the servers called PhoenixD.
Stephen DeLorme (41:28):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (41:29):
The D standing for demon, like, similar to Bitcoin D.
Stephen DeLorme (41:33):
Yeah.
Different than the Asyncserver node itself.
But yeah, that's cool.
So, okay, so you got lightning optionson all these different things and you
know, like similarly with the Bitcoinnode, you can, if you don't, if you're
not using Start9, if you're not usingUmbrel, you can still, uh, set this,
you know, software up on your own.
I think Alby actually has somekind of hosting thing for Alby
(41:57):
Hub that they can do for you.
Jordan Bravo (41:58):
Yeah.
Let's give a shout out to them.
Alby Hub.
What is their getalby.com, I think istheir website, but they have a hosted
option and it's kind of cool becausethey offer a trust minimized solution
where they're hosting the lightningnode, but it's done in such a way
that, you're not giving up too much interms of, um, 'rugability' for them to
(42:22):
steal your funds or anything like that.
Stephen DeLorme (42:24):
Yeah.
but yeah, so, but in addition to this,you know, you could host Alby Hub locally.
I mean, you might be able to putit on a laptop, I'm not sure.
You know, LND, Core Lightning, you know,you can run all that from a server.
If you do need to run onefrom a server, I gotta say my
favorite is PhoenixD right now.
Uh, just in the, you don'thave to deal with all the,
(42:44):
like, lightning liquidity crap.
Like they just open achannel directly to you.
And like, you know, if you'refamiliar with the terminal, it's like
one of the easiest installs ever.
Like, you basically, like, they havelike a two command installation on their
website, wget the download the binary,and then you unzip it and you run it.
That's it.
So like, as long as you, you know, unlessyou want to get into compiling source
(43:07):
code, that's a whole other rabbit hole.
But just in terms of, getting it towork, you just download it and run it.
It's like stupid simple.
I, I think if you want to runa lightning node on a server, I
might recommend personally PhoenixDum, as a starting point for that.
And then if you have moresophisticated needs and, you know,
(43:28):
need more customizability andstuff, you can get into LND and,
and you know, stuff like that.
Jordan Bravo (43:36):
So if you're running PhoenixD on a server.
And I've not done this, so I'mcurious, can you then take for
example, ZEUS and point it toPhoenixD and control it from there?
Stephen DeLorme (43:48):
I actually don't know about that.
I should check on that.
Yeah, that's a good point.
It might be that, it might be if youneed that, easy mobile, you know, use
case, maybe it's not the option for you.
I guess I always defaultinto thinking about, uh.
Lightning nodes server, lightningnodes as like backing web
applications and stuff like that.
And so I'm usually not worried about that.
(44:08):
You can hook it up to LNBits very easily.
Getting LNBits in PhoenixD talkingto each other is very easy.
But yeah, if your use case is actuallyokay, yeah, I think you're right.
I don't think there'sactually a lot of UI options.
So I retract my statement or let mere-clarify my statement, if your use
case is you're building web applicationsthat need to talk to a lightning
(44:31):
network and you know, need to be ableto, you know, receive Bitcoin and stuff
like that, then I think PhoenixD isprobably the easiest thing for you.
But if you're wanting to like run yourown home bank or whatever, and then you
might benefit from something a little bitmore, I don't know, with a little more
infrastructure built up around it, likeLND and Alby Hub or something like that.
Jordan Bravo (44:57):
So it sounds like the target user of PhoenixD is
probably software developers?
Stephen DeLorme (45:03):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I actually don't know whatthe target audience is for it.
I think the initial post for it wasjust something like, "We got a lot of
people asking if they could run Phoenixon a server. So here's the binary."
It's, I think they just like, I thinkthey, I, I mean I think they might have
actually just like tweaked something.
It's supposed to be exactly like the phonestuff, but it has this like CLI interface
(45:25):
wrapped it on, but I think otherwiseit's supposed to be like the same
logic under the hood as the phone app.
So I think it's just like, I think theyjust get it because people ask for it.
I don't really know who it's targeted at.
Jordan Bravo (45:38):
Interesting.
Yeah, I'd be, I'd be curious to knowwhat the users or the use case is for it.
It sounds like you use it on the CLIwhen you're working on web apps that need
a lightning node and it makes it easy.
Stephen DeLorme (45:51):
Yeah, totally.
because like, I mean, I, I was teachinga lightning workshop this past weekend.
I set up Phoenix D, LNBits.
I had the whole class using that,I think, uh, L tor, the project
that, um, won the lightning trackat the Bitcoin 2024 last year.
The guy who made that one, I think NickTi, think, used PhoenixD for that as well.
It's like a Tor network that you payover lightning and, Yeah, he just, it
(46:12):
was, you know, like super easy, youknow, download it and run the binary.
So I think for developers it'slike a super easy, you know, quick
install, but depends on your use case.
Jordan Bravo (46:22):
Cool.
Okay.
This whole topic of lightning in generaland running your own lightning node and
all the different use cases and extensionsoftware that goes in conjunction
with lightning is a really deep topic.
We've only just scratched the surfacehere today, so if you are interested
in knowing anything particularfurther, please let us know.
(46:43):
You can do that via Boostor you can email us.
And we will be getting amatrix room coming soon.
I'm gonna keep plugging that andlet you know when it is actually
available and how you can access that.
All right.
We are now gonna get into user feedback.
We had somebody comment on theepisode on mobile operating
(47:08):
systems and @shaigluskin1225says, Jordan, "Great video, but
you got one thing wrong regardingpurchasing used slash refurbished.
There is a difference between carrierunlocked and factory unlocked.
For example, let's say I boughta Pixel 7 from ATT on a plan.
(47:29):
It's factory locked and carrier locked.
Once I paid it off in full, I canrequest carrier unlocking from ATT.
Once accomplished, the phone is nowusable with other carriers and on
used sites will be listed as unlocked.
But you won't be able to unlockthe bootloader and install
GrapheneOS on that phone.
(47:50):
The setting for "OEM unlocking"is permanently grayed out on any
phone that was ever factory locked.
The only used pixels that will workare ones that were carrier unlocked
when they were originally purchased.
If they were ever carrier locked,then the phone is factory locked
against unlocking the bootloader.
Used sites don't tell you whetherthe phone is factory unlocked.
(48:13):
Only that it is carrier unlocked.
So in most cases, one will need to buya new pixel that is carrier unlocked
in order to install GrapheneOS."
Okay, so if I'm understandingthis feedback correctly, there's
kind of two levels of unlocking.
And when you go to a, a used sitesuch as Swappa, which is what
(48:36):
I discussed in that episode on,on, uh, mobile operating systems.
If, if it says unlocked, that's onlyreferring to carrier unlocked, but they
actually will not have any way of, oftelling you whether it's factory unlocked.
And in order to be able to unlock thebootloader to flash something like
GrapheneOS and then relock it and needa phone that has factory unlocked,
(48:59):
carrier unlocked is not enough.
Does that sound like what this?
Stephen DeLorme (49:03):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (49:03):
ShaiGlueskin is saying?
Stephen DeLorme (49:05):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Jordan Bravo (49:06):
Okay.
Well, I did not know that.
Great feedback.
Thank you for writing in andletting us know about that.
So I guess the takeaway there is makesure you're getting a factory unlocked
phone, and if you are buying it used,you have to kind of guess or it's
sort of a crapshoot because they'renot gonna make that clear upfront.
Stephen DeLorme (49:27):
Yeah.
I guess if you were like buying itfrom a friend or something, then,
then you would be able to determinethat upfront when you're buying it.
So, and maybe, maybe to refine thatslightly, it's that, you know, if, if
you're planning on buying a used phone inorder to, you know, put Graphos on there,
then you need to be able to see the phoneand verify that it's actually factory
(49:50):
unlocked, you know, before you make thepurchase, which you can do in person with
your friends, you can't always do that,uh, with one of these swapping sites.
Jordan Bravo (49:59):
Right?
And if you want to know how to doit, go to grapheneos.org, under
their installation instructions.
They're gonna walk you throughhow to unlock the bootloader.
And in that first step, you'll,you'll be able to go to that option.
If the option is grayed out,you know that it's locked.
And you can't unlock it.
If it's, if you are able todo it, then you're good to
(50:21):
go and it's factory unlocked.
Stephen DeLorme (50:24):
Cool.
Jordan Bravo (50:26):
Alright.
Thanks everybody andwe'll see you next time.
Stephen DeLorme (50:30):
Catch you later.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to learn more aboutanything that we discussed, you can
look for links in the show notes thatshould be in your podcast player, or
you can go to atlbitlab.com/podcast.
On a final note, if you foundthis information useful and you
want to help support us, you canalways send us a tip in Bitcoin.
(50:54):
Your support really helps us so that wecan keep bringing you content like this.
All right.
Catch you later.
Why would we wanna go through the effort of
(00:02):
hosting our own Bitcoin node?
Well, it comes down totrust or lack thereof.
If you are interacting with theBitcoin network, you are either
using your own Bitcoin node or you'reusing somebody else's Bitcoin node.
And when you are using somebodyelse's Bitcoin node, there is an
(00:23):
inherent necessity for trust there.
You are trusting that they are one,giving you the correct data about the
Bitcoin network and two, that theyare not spying on your transactions.
Welcome to the Sovereign ComputingShow, presented by ATL BitLab.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is apodcast where we teach you how to
(00:47):
take back control of your devices.
Sovereign Computing means you own yourtechnology, not the other way around.
Stephen DeLorme (00:57):
This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab.
ATL BitLab is Atlanta'sfreedom tech hacker space.
We have co working desks,conference rooms, event space,
maker tools, and tons of coffee.
There is a very activecommunity here in the lab.
Every Wednesday night isBitcoin night here in Atlanta.
We also have meetups for cyber security,artificial intelligence, decentralized
(01:17):
identity, product design, and more.
We offer day passes and nomad passesfor people who need to use the lab only
occasionally, as well as membershipsfor people who plan to use the lab
more regularly, such as myself.
One of the best things abouthaving a BitLab membership isn't
the amenities, it's the people.
Surrounding yourself with acommunity helps you learn faster
and helps you build better.
(01:39):
Your creativity becomes amplifiedwhen you work in this space,
that's what I think at least.
If you're interested in becominga member or supporting this space,
please visit us at atlbitlab.
com.
That's A-T-L-B-I-T-L-A-B-dot com.
Alright, on to our show.
Jordan Bravo (01:59):
Welcome to The Sovereign Computing Show.
I'm Jordan Bravo, and I am recordinghere today from ATL BitLab in the
heart of Atlanta with Stephen DeLorme.
Stephen DeLorme (02:10):
Sup.
Jordan Bravo (02:12):
We wanna remind you that you can write into the show by boosting
with Fountain FM as the podcast client,and you can attach some SATs to that.
We will read your feedbackand suggestions on the show.
You can also send us an email.
That email address issovereign@atlbitlab.com.
That's S-O-V-E-R-E-I-G-N@atlbitlab.com.
(02:38):
And to see all of the informationregarding this episode, go
to atlbitlab.com/podcast.
Today, before we get into our maintopic, we wanna bring to you a couple
of interesting news items that arerelevant to the sovereign computing space.
The first one we want to talkabout today is about Thunderbird.
(03:02):
And Thunderbird, to remind you is aemail and calendar client by Mozilla
and it's only a client that you downloadand use on your computer, or on your
Android phone, but it has not beena service in the way of like Gmail
or Outlook or something like that.
(03:23):
But they have just announced that theyare now gonna be offering a service and
it's kind of a multi-pronged servicethat they are offering a competing
service to the likes of Gmail and thoseother companies and, they're calling it,
they're calling one of them Thundermail.
So if you, for example, don't havean email address and you want to use
(03:45):
Thunderbird, previously you had to bringyour own email address and email service.
So whether you're bringing in fromGmail or some other more privacy
respecting email provider, you hadto bring your own email provider,
and Thunderbird was just the client.
But now going forward, Thundermail.com is a service that they're
(04:05):
providing, and you'll be ableto have your own domain name.
I, I believe it's Thunder.
You'll have your, yourname@thundermail.com or tb.pro.
They're providing both a freeservice and a premium service.
And the premium service, you get to one,know that you're supporting, um, an open
(04:27):
source and privacy respecting service,but you also get some value add such as,
you know what, I'm not seeing it here.
Stephen, do you see anyof the, the professional.
Stephen DeLorme (04:40):
Uh, let's see.
Pro?
No, I do not.
Jordan Bravo (04:50):
It might be more of a, a future feature that they're
promising to release, but uh, maybein the meantime it's just gonna
be that the free basic service.
Stephen DeLorme (05:02):
Yeah.
Huh.
Interesting.
Pro.
Yeah.
I don't really talk about it a whole lot.
Jordan Bravo (05:10):
But, uh, in any case, the free service is gonna be having
your own email address and server.
They also offer somethingcalled Thunderbird appointment.
It's a scheduling tool that allows youto send a link to someone, allowing them
to pick a time on your calendar to meet.
So this is kind of like Calendly,if any of you have ever used that or
(05:32):
interacted with somebody who's usedCalendly, basically, I can send a link
to somebody, they click it, it takesthem to a webpage, and then they can
schedule themselves on my calendar.
The other thing that they're offering issomething called Thunderbird Send, and
this is a rebirth of Firefox Send, whichwas a service that Mozilla previously
offered, where if I wanna share afile with somebody on my computer.
(05:59):
It's kind of like Dropbox upload or one ofthese other services where you could just
send a link to somebody and they can clickit, open their browser and download it.
It makes it incredibly easy tosend things very convenient.
So the reason I wanted to share thesewith you is because this is a more
(06:19):
private privacy respecting and open sourceversion of some of these proprietary
services that already exists and haveexisted for years with other providers.
Stephen DeLorme (06:29):
I think these are the pro services.
It's like what are the services?
Jordan Bravo (06:33):
Okay, so we'll have to do some more research onto into
which, which of these are providedfor on the free account and which
are provided on the pro account.
As soon as these are publicly available,it might be the case that they're already
available, but I'm gonna do a littlemore research and try these myself.
And then, uh, I'll report back here and,and we'll go over them in more detail, but
(06:59):
I just wanted to bring this to everyone'sattention and boost in or write in and
let us know if you are interested in theseservices, if you've already tried them.
Uh, if so, what you think.
Stephen DeLorme (07:11):
That's pretty cool.
Is Thunderbird stillmaintained by Mozilla?
Well, it must be.
I just saw the Mozillalogo on some of this.
Jordan Bravo (07:19):
Yes, it is.
Stephen DeLorme (07:22):
Well, you know, maybe that's a, a revenue
model that's not Google.
That's cool.
Jordan Bravo (07:26):
Yep.
Mozilla has tried a lot.
They've thrown a lot of things at thewall and not much has stuck except for
their Google funding over the years.
So it'll be nice to see this.
Maybe it'll actually generatesome revenue for them and they'll
be less dependent on Google.
Stephen DeLorme (07:45):
Yeah, and that's cool.
The request for appointmentthing is, uh, pretty cool.
I don't know.
I mean, it feels like, Calendly hasjust been the incumbent player in
the appointment scheduling space andall that, so it would be fun to see
some more privacy-focused brands, uh,looking into that product feature.
Jordan Bravo (08:03):
Yeah, I'd like to give it a try.
I already used Thunderbirdas a client on my devices, so
this might be a cool addition.
All right.
The next item we want to talk about,which is timely, and this is 23andMe, the
company that does A DNA test for people.
(08:26):
This article is from fortune.com andit says 23andMe says "It won permission
from a judge to sell customers medicaland ancestry data. Here's how to delete
yours." And then, um, the detailsare that a US bankruptcy judge ruled,
DNA testing company 23andMe, whichfiled for bankruptcy Sunday has the
(08:49):
right to sell customers medical andancestry data to potential bidders.
Offers will be due on May 7th.
A final hearing will be held in June.
And this is 2025 in case anybodyis listening to this in the future.
But we'll put the link to this articlein the show notes, but I want to give
my quick, uh, opinion on this, and I'vebeen saying for years that you don't
(09:15):
wanna give your DNA to these companiesjust for the kind of novelty of knowing
that you came from continent X, Y, andZ. To me, it just never sat right to have
something so personal that could be usedagainst me by nefarious organizations
as my DNA and my whole genome andputting this in some cloud providers
(09:39):
database, one to be hacked or two inthis kind of exact scenario where the
company is going out of business throughbankruptcy, and now basically they're
selling off all the company assets,including their massive customer database.
So I hope that none of you haveyour data with 23andMe, but if
(10:03):
you do, check out this articleand act now before the deadline,
before they're able to sell it off.
And maybe you can get yours deletedfrom the database before they sell it.
Stephen DeLorme (10:15):
Uh, it might be worth asking.
We actually had a conversation aboutthis at the cybersecurity meetup
at ATL BitLab a few weeks ago.
Somebody asked the question, "Well, what'sthe big deal? Like, why does it matter
if some other company gets my geneticmaterial? What are we worried about?"
Jordan Bravo (10:34):
Sure.
I, I think one that comes immediatelyto mind is that what if your health
insurance company buys this data andnow they can exclude you from coverage
because you have genetic disease X, Y,Z. Or maybe your potential children will
have genetic disease, X, Y, Z becauseyou're a carrier for this particular gene.
(10:56):
And so now maybe they'll developa policy where they're gonna
exclude anybody with gene X, Y, Zbecause it leads to some disease.
And so they would consider that apreexisting condition, and therefore
they're gonna deny you coverage.
So that's just one example of, ofhow it could be used against you.
Stephen DeLorme (11:15):
You can also imagine some future science fiction scenarios
where, uh, you know, maybe if you findthat, uh, I don't know, you have a gene
that makes you more like susceptibleor something like, I've heard that
like there are some genes that playlike greater roles and like addiction
and stuff like that, and I'm, I'm surethere's genes that play roles in other,
like personality types and all that.
(11:36):
So, uh, you know, you can imaginesome minority report, uh, situation
where all advertising is targetedbased on people's genetic profiles.
Jordan Bravo (11:45):
Minority report, or another one that comes to mind is
Gatica, where we you get discriminatedagainst because of your genome.
You know, you're, you're only qualifiedfor this position if you have these
particular genes, or, or you've gotthese particular genes, so you're
disqualified from this position.
Stephen DeLorme (12:01):
Oh, I'm not familiar with that one.
I've heard the name, but never watched it.
Jordan Bravo (12:04):
That's a good one.
You should check it out.
It, it's very like kind of cornynineties, but it's, it's got a really
cool concept where in the future,everybody's genome is, is mapped
and it's tied to your identity.
And if you've, you basically, youhave like a society that's very
cast driven because of your genome.
Stephen DeLorme (12:24):
Oh.
I'm sure there are people out here worriedabout, like that Black Mirror episode
where the, they're like taking people'sgenes and spinning up replicas of their
brains inside of video games and stuff.
But, uh, that was my leastfavorite Black Mirror episode.
I don't think, uh, that's, that'sanything we actually have to
worry about right this second.
(12:46):
Having our entire brainsbeing copyable by, uh.
DNA, that's, that's nothard science fiction.
That's soft science fiction.
But the health, the health insurancething, I, I would agree is probably the
most immediate threat or concern onewould have about this kind of thing.
Jordan Bravo (13:02):
Sure.
And while this one particular thingmight not be a complete end of the
world scenario, it's all about reducingyour digital footprint and becoming a
smaller target and, and having less ofyour data strewn across the internet.
Stephen DeLorme (13:23):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (13:24):
Get those wins where you can, and improve your
digital footprint where you can.
All right, so we're gonna move on totoday's main topic, which is how to host
your own Bitcoin and Lightning node.
Before we talk about thehow, let's talk about why.
(13:44):
Why would we wanna go through theeffort of hosting our own Bitcoin node?
Well, it comes down totrust or lack thereof.
If you are interacting with theBitcoin network, you are either
using your own Bitcoin node or you'reusing somebody else's Bitcoin node.
And when you are using somebodyelse's Bitcoin node, there is an
(14:08):
inherent necessity for trust there.
You are trusting that they are one,giving you the correct data about the
Bitcoin network and two, that theyare not spying on your transactions.
For example, if I've got a clientand I'm gonna talk about like, let's
(14:28):
say Blue Wallet, which is a iOS andAndroid Bitcoin wallet software.
Out of the box, it's gonna beconnecting to a third party node.
Now, they have a system that minimizestrust by having a series of different
nodes that it could connect to.
And these are trustworthy nodes andit's semi anonymized, but at the end of
(14:51):
the day, you are trusting those nodes.
And so if I make a transaction, I amtrusting that it was not intercepted,
and my IP address is not beingcorrelated with those transactions
and sort of doxing my account.
Any additional thoughts onthat particular point, Stephen?
Stephen DeLorme (15:12):
Yeah, I think there's also a philosophical kind of angle
to hosting your own Bitcoin node.
You hear a lot of times this mantrain Bitcoin and the wider crypto
ecosystem of be your own Bank.
And so what does that mean?
I think it goes a littledeeper than just I can send and
receive without a middleman.
(15:32):
There's also being able to verify that themoney that you're receiving is actually
valid and recognized and real money.
So, uh, if you think aboutBitcoin, well, what is it?
Well, it's, it's basically just thisledger, and it's this idea that every
(15:52):
Bitcoin user, which really in this contextis really just anybody, any Bitcoin node
kind of agrees on the state of the ledger.
And that ledger is updatedroughly every 10 minutes.
Uh, and the nodes have tocome to agree on what that is.
Well, if you don't have, youknow, your own node, you're
trusting somebody else's node.
(16:13):
so it's kind of this strange ideawhere you think about it, of like,
you know, let's say somebody sends youone Bitcoin because you're, I don't
know, selling a car or something.
These days that's a really expensive car.
But anyways, somebody's sendingyou a Bitcoin and the little, you
know, wallet interface lights upand says you've received a Bitcoin.
(16:35):
And it's like, well, how do youknow that's really a Bitcoin?
And how do you know that's not just likesome web interface or some, you know,
front end UI that's telling you that youknow your account has been incremented.
You don't actually know unless you'regoing through a Bitcoin node and you're,
you know, validating from the source,from an actual, you know, proper copy
(17:00):
of the ledger that is the blockchain.
You don't really know otherwise,if the money's real or not,
or if the transaction's real.
So I don't want to scareeverybody and well, maybe I do.
I don't, you know, wantto say that, you know.
all websites that, tell you anythingto do with the Bitcoin blockchain are
bad or wrong or anything like that.
But at, at a certain level, you don'treally know for sure unless you've
(17:24):
actually run the Bitcoin node yourself.
So, you know, if you're just startingoff your Bitcoin journey, it's one
of those things where, you know, alittle bit on exchange might be fine.
Maybe you want to withdraw someof that to a hot wallet on, uh,
your phone or something like that.
But if you're getting to the point,you know, where you've got a bunch of,
you know, Bitcoin and cold storage orsomething like that, when you start
(17:47):
having, you know, more and more,uh, in Bitcoin, it's, it might be
worth, it depends on, depending onyour threat model, but it might be
worth it to actually validate thatmoney is real and actually there.
Jordan Bravo (18:00):
Agreed.
And a Bitcoin node is, don't bethrown off by the terminology.
it's not some kind of magical computer.
It can be any computer.
You could be running Bitcoin nodesoftware on a desktop or a laptop.
But typically you want to have itrunning continuously all the time, so
you're gonna be running it on somethingthat you leave plugged in and on 24/7.
(18:24):
And if you think about it, Bitcoinblocks are generated every 10 minutes.
So really it needs to be continuouslyconnected to the internet and on so
that it can be updated the Bitcoinblockchain with the latest block.
And then when you are accessing it froma remote client, like a mobile phone
or laptop, let's say, that it's got thelatest, Bitcoin blockchain information.
(18:45):
So typically you want to be runningit on the same kind of hardware as
you'd run a typical home server.
This could be is something as low poweredas a Raspberry Pi, or it could be a
little bit more powerful, maybe littlehome PC that you leave plugged in.
But in any case, you're gonna get thebest results if you can leave it on 24/7.
(19:07):
We'll talk a little bit more about thehow, but we've been talking about the
Base Layer or Layer one blockchain node.
We also wanna talk about today howwe're gonna, you can host a lightning
node and let's get into the differencebetween the Bitcoin and lightning node,
and also the why of why you might wannaalso additionally, set up a lightning
(19:29):
node in addition to your Bitcoin node.
Now, first, a lightning node.
It requires a Bitcoin node, so a lightningnode is simply additional software that's
running on top of or side by side witha Bitcoin node and a lightning node
basically speaks the lightning protocolso that any two Bitcoin nodes that speak
(19:53):
the lightning protocol can communicatewith each other and send payments back and
forth in what's called a payment channel.
And when you host your own lightningnode with your Bitcoin node, you gain
some major benefits because whilehosting, while you can certainly run
a Bitcoin node on something like amobile device, and there's a lot of
(20:17):
cool apps out there that'll do this.
For example, Phoenix or Zeus, youare making certain trade-offs in
terms of, what is being trustedby that app and that server.
So, uh, we'll get into the nitty grittyof, of about how you would do that
and the different trade offs there.
But similar to with a Bitcoin node,you're really bringing that entire
(20:42):
stack into your own control, and you'regiving yourself the ability to know
and not have to trust that you arerunning, that you've, the amount of
money that you see that you have isactually the amount of money that you
do have and that, nobody else is ableto view or spy on your transactions.
(21:03):
Stephen, any additionalthoughts on running a lightning
node and, and the why of it?
Stephen DeLorme (21:08):
Yeah, I mean, and I'll just, I'll rephrase the why slightly.
I mean, lightning is nice becausepeople can make transactions
that are much quicker and muchcheaper in transaction fees.
You know, it's like a lot of times,you know, if you're just running
a Bitcoin node, maybe you're onlyinterested in on-chain stuff.
(21:29):
You know, maybe you're dealingwith transactions that are bigger
transactions, let's say, um, andmaybe with the lightning node,
you're trying to engage in.
It doesn't have to be smallertransactions, but it very well could
be smaller, more frequent transactions,maybe engaging in value for value stuff.
Again, it's not my place to tell youhow to use your Bitcoin and lightning
(21:51):
node, but just throwing out some examplesthere of of like on-chain Bitcoin
use versus the lightning use case.
Jordan Bravo (22:00):
Cool.
So if we wanna host our own Bitcoin node.
How do we start going about that?
It's gonna depend on your technicalskill level, but if you are somebody who
doesn't want to bother with the terminaland you are completely inexperienced
when it comes to Linux, you'll probablywant to go with a graphical operating
(22:24):
system like Umbrel and Start OS are thetwo that we've mentioned before and we're
going to show those on the screen here.
For those of you just listening, we areat umbrel.com and if you go into the
Umbrel app store, we can, you can seeBitcoin node and it's a one click install.
(22:47):
And when you install this, it's goingto start the initial block download,
which is where it's gonna sync theBitcoin blockchain data, all from all
the way back to the beginning, theGenesis block in 2009, up to the present.
And depending on the power of yourhardware and the speed of your internet
connection, this could take anywherefrom a few hours to a few days.
Stephen DeLorme (23:14):
And then, uh, yeah, I haven't used the latest
versions of Umbrel, but I rememberusing Umbrel like four years ago.
It was pretty easy to set up.
Jordan Bravo (23:24):
The other graphical option is Start OS by Start9.
And similarly to Umbrel, theyhave a marketplace and you
can search for Bitcoin Core.
You'll notice that sometimes it'sgonna be called Bitcoin Core.
Sometimes it's just referredto as a Bitcoin node, but this
is the same exact software.
Stephen DeLorme (23:43):
Yeah.
And for anyone who doesn't knowBitcoin core is like the main Bitcoin
implementation that like the vast majorityof Bitcoin nodes are running Bitcoin Core.
Because it's kind of the default.
Yeah.
It's frequently abbreviated.
Jordan Bravo (23:57):
The other app that I highly recommend installing is called
it's an Electrum server, um, but it,you may see it listed as Electrs.
That's E-L-E-C-T-R-S.
And this runs alongsideyour Bitcoin core Software.
And it's, it's an indexer.
(24:18):
What that means is it, BitcoinCore by default doesn't have the
full functionality that a lot ofapps like to take advantage of.
And so by downloading and installingElectrs after your Bitcoin node is fully
synced, you're going to get the fullfunctionality in terms of being able
(24:38):
to connect a lot of common apps to it.
Stephen DeLorme (24:42):
Yeah, and that should also be on the App store too.
So it looks like Start9 has Electrsand then I think we saw earlier that
they have ElectrumX, Electrs andFulcrum on Umbrel, but I mean, they,
they're all basically Electrum servers.
Jordan Bravo (24:57):
Yeah, they're all, they're all similar.
Although in my experience,Electrs and Fulcrum have better
performance than Electrum X, soI'd recommend one of those two.
Stephen DeLorme (25:06):
Cool.
Jordan Bravo (25:07):
If you're wondering about which of those two, I would
say depends on your hardware.
If you have beefier hardware,go with Fulcrum and you're
gonna get better performance.
But if your hardware is a littlebit more constrained, then Electrs
will perform a little bit better.
Stephen DeLorme (25:25):
Ah, okay.
Jordan Bravo (25:30):
Those are the two graphical options.
But if you are a Linux proficientindividual, or maybe you wanna try running
it on your own server, VPS or home server.
You can run it through a Dockerimage, or you can simply go to one
of the sites, one of the GitHub reposand follow the instructions there.
(25:53):
It's relatively straightforward.
You're gonna have to give it the usernameand password of your Bitcoin Core
node, and then you're off to the races.
Similarly to how Bitcoin Core has todownload the initial, do the initial
block download and build up thatdatabase of the Bitcoin blockchain.
The Electrum server is going to haveto scan the whole Bitcoin blockchain
(26:17):
that you've downloaded, and it'sgonna build up an index that can take
a few hours, but it's a lot quickerthan the Bitcoin block download.
So, however long your Bitcoin blockchaindownload took, it'll take a fraction of
that time, but it will take some time.
Stephen DeLorme (26:34):
Now, it might be worth talking a little bit about ways to improve
this, and like system requirements.
Let me know if I'm getting aheadof, of you here on this, but I think
right now the Bitcoin blockchainis about a terabyte, or I'm sorry,
it's less than a terabyte in size.
I think it's like six or 700 gigabytes.
(26:55):
And about four years ago, the kind ofrecommendation was that if you want
to run a Bitcoin node on, say, like anUmbrel, you are supposed to plug in a
one terabyte hard drive, like minimum.
I wonder if that's still the case orif the requirements have gotten more.
Jordan Bravo (27:16):
I currently run a home server with a 1 TB drive SSD, and I've got
the six to 700 gigabyte Bitcoin blockchaindata as well as these Electrum servers,
uh, 100 to 200 gigabytes of index data,and it's running very smoothly for me.
(27:39):
So I would say you can still runa completely unpruned, Bitcoin
node with one terabyte drive.
Stephen DeLorme (27:47):
So then that's good then.
But yeah, it is something to keepin mind that like it is gonna keep
getting bigger and bigger and as you.
Because you, you bring a good point thereis it's not just the blockchain, it's
also like the index and all of that.
So you will eventually reach a point,I'm not saying it's critical right now,
but you will reach a point where itwill get to be too, uh, small, like, I
(28:09):
don't know, maybe another four years,something like that, eight years.
I don't know.
But it might be the sort of thingto think about that if like you're
just starting from scratch right now.
Maybe, maybe two terabytes,but I don't know.
I might be getting way ahead.
Jordan Bravo (28:22):
Yeah.
Two terabyte drive will giveyou years of space to grow.
The other option, and maybe youwere alluding to this, is you
can enable the pruning feature,
Stephen DeLorme (28:32):
Yeah.
Pruning is great.
Jordan Bravo (28:32):
for Bitcoin Core and pruning will, throw out
some of the older block data.
It'll, you can give it a parameterof however many megabytes or
gigabytes you wanna constrain it to.
And then anything above that, itwill simply throw it away and not,
it won't take up space on your drive.
Stephen DeLorme (28:49):
Yeah.
And you could do something like,you know, I, I only want to keep,
uh, six gigabytes of Bitcoin data.
That's great, because you'restill validating from block zero.
Like the, the node is still goingback to the Genesis block and
it's checking every single block.
But once it hits its maxlimit, it starts throwing away.
It's like first in, first out.
(29:09):
It, it starts throwing out theblocks that it doesn't need
anymore once it's validated it.
So you can save a lot of space that way.
I think another thing maybe too, likesystem requirements, because like,
I think when I was, you know, now Ijust usually do Bitcoin nodes on like
VPSs personally, but, or back whenI was using Umbrel, I had like a SSD
(29:31):
hooked up with like USD, uh, USB 3.0.
And, uh, I've heard thatapparently the SSD really actually
speeds up performance a lot.
I, I, which I was really surprised by.
I would've thought that the bottleneckwould've been the, you know, one
gigabit per second network cablegoing from the computer to the router.
(29:54):
And I would've thought, uh, thatwould've been the bottleneck, not
necessarily the, you know, that itwouldn't really matter if the SSD was
capable of, you know, writing data at afull three gigabits per second because
it's bottleneck something before that.
But, I, I've at least heardreports that it's way, way faster
downloading the blockchain to theSSD as opposed to a spinning disc.
Jordan Bravo (30:17):
Oh, yeah.
I, I can confirm I've done bothand the processor speed affects it.
The SSD versus like a spinningdisc, hard disc affects it.
And that's because it's not thedownloading that's the bottleneck,
but rather the validating it, whichis a processor intensive task.
Stephen DeLorme (30:38):
Mm.
Jordan Bravo (30:38):
And then writing that to disc is also very, um, I/O intensive.
So you have both an I/O boundfor, this is sort of a software
engineering speak, but like you havea bottleneck both on the I/O part of
it and on the processing part of it.
Stephen DeLorme (30:54):
Mm. Yeah.
And I think Bitcoin Core is like, itwaits until one block is validated,
before it downloads the next one.
I think is how that works.
So if you, even if you have a reallyfast internet connection, if it's
validating them slowly, it's basicallythat's preventing it from asking for
the next block and downloading it.
So yeah, I could see how the,the CPU validation would add
(31:18):
a good bit of time to that.
And then, yeah, if it's having tolike write some data to the disc, then
check it and then write it again or,or whatever it's doing, then, the hard
drive time would take a lot there.
So yeah, all things to consider.
Jordan Bravo (31:32):
The, the upshot of that is that I have personally found that
a Raspberry Pi, for example, a Pi 4specifically, it could run a Bitcoin
node at a reasonable enough performance.
But when I added a lightningnode on top of that, it became
(31:53):
the UX became really bad.
It was just too much data to process.
And so I would say if you're onlyinterested in running a Bitcoin node,
then a Raspberry Pi 4 or greaterprocessing device will be sufficient.
But if you are gonna put a lightning nodeon top of it as well, you're gonna want
some slightly more powerful hardware.
(32:13):
We're not talking aboutanything crazy here.
Raspberry Pi 4s are very low powered.
So something as simple as like an I3processor for, you know, you might
recognize that this is like whatwould come in a really cheap laptop.
Stephen DeLorme (32:27):
Mm-hmm.
Jordan Bravo (32:27):
But like, that's gonna be plenty sufficient for
a, a Bitcoin and lightning node.
Stephen DeLorme (32:31):
Yeah.
We had a lightning node, a workshop,how to build one at AtL Bitlab a couple
years ago, that Packet Protector taughtand he, he set everybody up on the Start
OS and he had these like computers.
He was pointing everybody toonline that you could order.
They were pretty cool becausethey were like just these
kind of business computers.
They were, you know, originally Dellor I can't remember what brand, but
(32:55):
they're originally meant to just like runwindows, whatever version, and, and be
kind of a affordable business machine.
They're very small form factor,like, you know, half the size
of a laptop, maybe smaller.
They were, and they were super cheap and,you know, they had processing and RAM
capabilities much greater than a RaspberryPi, because they weren't built for like,
(33:15):
you know, kids hacking on IOT devices.
They were like built for likepeople to actually, you know, do
business productivity stuff on.
So yeah, you don't need like a fullon supercomputer just to get something
beefier, uh, than a Raspberry Pi.
It.
Jordan Bravo (33:30):
Totally.
And I highly recommend those.
Go on, you can get them used on eBay.
You know, businesses will buy thesein bulk and then sell them, so
you're getting it only slightly used.
Like Stephen was saying, theycome in these, they call them
mini PCs, mini form factor PCs.
Sometimes they're called one liter PCs.
But they're these little things aboutas big as a router and it's a full on
(33:55):
PC, and HP, Lenovo and Dell all makeones that you can get for a hundred,
150 bucks with really decent hardware.
And this is, these will be plentyto run, not only your Bitcoin and
lightning nodes, but all kindsof other self-hosted software.
So if you're interested inrunning any kind of stuff at
(34:17):
home, these make great devices.
Alright, so once you've gotten your homeserver or VPS, however you wanna run it.
And you are running Bitcoin Core.
Maybe you're also running yourElectrum server and you're
running your lightning node.
Actually, let's set aside thelightning node for a second, but
you've got your Bitcoin Core andElectrum server running, what do you
(34:39):
do to take advantage of that now?
Now, what you can do is you go intoyour client software and three of them
that come to mind might be PhoenixWallet on mobile, Blue Wallet, also on
mobile and Sparrow Wallet on desktop.
And these three all take advantage ofthe Electrum server protocol, so they
(35:01):
can all talk to your Electrum server.
And you're going to go into the settingsof those wallets and there's a specific
section where you can just copy pastethe address of your Electrum server.
Once you've done that, you'll noticethat sometimes you might have to
restart the app, but once you do,you now know that your wallet is
(35:23):
only talking to your own nodes.
So all of the data that it's gettingabout the Bitcoin blockchain and
about any transactions is talkingto your own node so you can rest
assured that nobody else has seen yourtransactions and you all those, those
transactions are being fully validated.
Stephen DeLorme (35:39):
Yeah.
Spare is a really, really goodone for, well, almost anything.
I mean, a lot of people love itfor multisig and cold storage, like
interacting with their hardware wallet.
And it's, it has a lot ofadvanced functionality.
It's kind of almost like becomethe, the Swiss Army knife of
making Bitcoin transactions.
And that Blue Wallet I thinkis, uh, super easy to use.
(36:01):
I think it's a good choice for likea hot wallet or something like that.
Your, your first hotwallet, Phoenix, I stand.
Phoenix is definitely one of my favoritelightning wallets, so it's cool.
You can point it at yourown Electrum server.
Jordan Bravo (36:14):
Yeah.
Phoenix is my number one recommendationfor people who just wanna get
into lightning really quickly.
It's got great UX and you don't haveto host your own lightning node.
This is one of those apps wementioned where it's a node is
actually running on the phone.
But by hosting your, pointing it atyour own Electrum server, you get
(36:34):
sort of the, almost the best of bothworlds, because the nodes running
on your phone and you're, you'regetting your own validated data.
So you're getting like, I would say 90+percent of the benefits of running your
own lightning node, but without havingto also manage your own liquidity.
Stephen DeLorme (36:52):
Oh, this might be a good moment to point out real quick
that Phoenix is back in the USA.
They were pulled off the App Storeswe mentioned in some previous episode
that the Phoenix had gotten, uh, orhad had decided voluntarily to pull out
of the US app store out of, you know,some, I guess, regulatory concerns.
But I guess those concernsare, uh, no longer an issue.
(37:13):
So they're back in the US sodownload it, give it a shot.
Jordan Bravo (37:17):
Yeah, that's right.
So it is currently April of 2025 as we'rerecording this and last year in roughly
the same time in 2024, Phoenix, likeStephen said, they pulled out of the US
app stores because of regulatory concerns.
But they're back now.
So if you have not tried out Phoenix,I encourage you to give it a shot.
(37:38):
You can get it on Google Play or the AppleApp Store, or if you have listened to
our recent episodes about alternative appstores, you can also just go to Obtanium
and you can add Phoenix's, GitHub repo,and you can just download it from there.
Anything else you want to add regardingBitcoin nodes, lightning nodes, or, uh oh.
(38:01):
Before I forget, if you are runningyour own lightning node, in my opinion,
the best remote control for it onyour mobile device is gonna be ZEUS.
So I wanted to make sure togive it, shout out to ZEUS.
ZEUS has the ability to run its ownlightning node in the phone, in the
app, but I think, it also shines asthe best remote control app where you
(38:25):
can point it at your own lightningnode and control it from your phone.
Stephen DeLorme (38:30):
Yeah, absolutely.
I guess we didn't really get intothe lightning stuff too deep.
Um, which we can if you want.
We didn't really get into like thenode options for that and all that.
Jordan Bravo (38:40):
Let's do that.
Let's talk about what the optionsare, if somebody is in the
Umbrel store or the Start9 store.
Yeah.
And they're looking at the differentlightning nodes, what are the
options and what are the trade-offs?
Stephen DeLorme (38:52):
Yeah.
So let's see.
Actually, it's been a while sinceI've looked at, uh, the Umbrel one.
Ooh.
So this is nice.
It looks like when I was usingUmbrel, it looks like they did not
have Core Lightning, but they nowhave uh, Core Lightning, and then
they should have LND somewhere.
Well, they have Lightning terminal.
Oh, so they just call it Lightning Node,run your Personal Lightning Network node.
(39:14):
So I'm like 99% sure that'sreferring to LND, which is like
the, the one that was, is like kindof maintained by Lightning Labs.
Uh, then you've got CoreLightning on here as well, which
is like Blockstream's version.
And they also support, uh, Alby Hub.
Alby Hub is kind of a custombuilt, lightning wallet.
(39:35):
I think it was built with LDK, butthat's all under the hood stuff that
doesn't matter, but to most folks.
But yeah, you can also run Alby Hub.
That's a fully functional lightning node.
And then I think the rest of the toolsI'm seeing on this page are just more like
tooling and stuff for interacting withyour lightning node, but Core Lightning,
LND and Lightning Node and Alby Hub arekind of the the primary options on Umbrel.
Jordan Bravo (40:01):
Yeah, and this is one of the advantages of hosting your
own lightning node is you get totake advantage of all of this other
great software that's out there thatcan run on top of a lightning node.
So something that comes to mind is LNBits,which is a web UI for managing various
lightning accounts, and there's all kindsof really cool additional plugins for it.
(40:23):
So you could, for example, add, uh, youcan use Nostr Wallet Connect and you could
be zapping people, fully self-custodialwith your own lightning node.
You could add, like Stephen said,Alby Hub, and then you can plug
into your podcast software and bedoing boostagrams with podcasting
2.0, all on your own lightning node.
(40:44):
So there's a whole ecosystemof software that works in
conjunction with lightning nodes.
Stephen DeLorme (40:48):
And Start9 it looks like, has the same options.
LND, Core Lightning and Alby Hub.
I, I haven't really heard a bigself-hosting story around the Async.
But I, I think the reason is because,uh, Async is, uh, a lightning node made
by the same people who make Phoenixand a lot of time Async is like, well,
there's a big, the biggest lightningnode on the network is the Async node.
(41:11):
And I don't think many people run theserver version though, boost in, and
let me know if I'm wrong about that.
But most of the people whouse Async software use their
Phoenix wallet, their mobile.
Jordan Bravo (41:22):
Yeah.
And we should say that the Phoenix,that the node that you can run for
Phoenix on the servers called PhoenixD.
Stephen DeLorme (41:28):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (41:29):
The D standing for demon, like, similar to Bitcoin D.
Stephen DeLorme (41:33):
Yeah.
Different than the Asyncserver node itself.
But yeah, that's cool.
So, okay, so you got lightning optionson all these different things and you
know, like similarly with the Bitcoinnode, you can, if you don't, if you're
not using Start9, if you're not usingUmbrel, you can still, uh, set this,
you know, software up on your own.
I think Alby actually has somekind of hosting thing for Alby
(41:57):
Hub that they can do for you.
Jordan Bravo (41:58):
Yeah.
Let's give a shout out to them.
Alby Hub.
What is their getalby.com, I think istheir website, but they have a hosted
option and it's kind of cool becausethey offer a trust minimized solution
where they're hosting the lightningnode, but it's done in such a way
that, you're not giving up too much interms of, um, 'rugability' for them to
(42:22):
steal your funds or anything like that.
Stephen DeLorme (42:24):
Yeah.
but yeah, so, but in addition to this,you know, you could host Alby Hub locally.
I mean, you might be able to putit on a laptop, I'm not sure.
You know, LND, Core Lightning, you know,you can run all that from a server.
If you do need to run onefrom a server, I gotta say my
favorite is PhoenixD right now.
Uh, just in the, you don'thave to deal with all the,
(42:44):
like, lightning liquidity crap.
Like they just open achannel directly to you.
And like, you know, if you'refamiliar with the terminal, it's like
one of the easiest installs ever.
Like, you basically, like, they havelike a two command installation on their
website, wget the download the binary,and then you unzip it and you run it.
That's it.
So like, as long as you, you know, unlessyou want to get into compiling source
(43:07):
code, that's a whole other rabbit hole.
But just in terms of, getting it towork, you just download it and run it.
It's like stupid simple.
I, I think if you want to runa lightning node on a server, I
might recommend personally PhoenixDum, as a starting point for that.
And then if you have moresophisticated needs and, you know,
(43:28):
need more customizability andstuff, you can get into LND and,
and you know, stuff like that.
Jordan Bravo (43:36):
So if you're running PhoenixD on a server.
And I've not done this, so I'mcurious, can you then take for
example, ZEUS and point it toPhoenixD and control it from there?
Stephen DeLorme (43:48):
I actually don't know about that.
I should check on that.
Yeah, that's a good point.
It might be that, it might be if youneed that, easy mobile, you know, use
case, maybe it's not the option for you.
I guess I always defaultinto thinking about, uh.
Lightning nodes server, lightningnodes as like backing web
applications and stuff like that.
And so I'm usually not worried about that.
(44:08):
You can hook it up to LNBits very easily.
Getting LNBits in PhoenixD talkingto each other is very easy.
But yeah, if your use case is actuallyokay, yeah, I think you're right.
I don't think there'sactually a lot of UI options.
So I retract my statement or let mere-clarify my statement, if your use
case is you're building web applicationsthat need to talk to a lightning
(44:31):
network and you know, need to be ableto, you know, receive Bitcoin and stuff
like that, then I think PhoenixD isprobably the easiest thing for you.
But if you're wanting to like run yourown home bank or whatever, and then you
might benefit from something a little bitmore, I don't know, with a little more
infrastructure built up around it, likeLND and Alby Hub or something like that.
Jordan Bravo (44:57):
So it sounds like the target user of PhoenixD is
probably software developers?
Stephen DeLorme (45:03):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I actually don't know whatthe target audience is for it.
I think the initial post for it wasjust something like, "We got a lot of
people asking if they could run Phoenixon a server. So here's the binary."
It's, I think they just like, I thinkthey, I, I mean I think they might have
actually just like tweaked something.
It's supposed to be exactly like the phonestuff, but it has this like CLI interface
(45:25):
wrapped it on, but I think otherwiseit's supposed to be like the same
logic under the hood as the phone app.
So I think it's just like, I think theyjust get it because people ask for it.
I don't really know who it's targeted at.
Jordan Bravo (45:38):
Interesting.
Yeah, I'd be, I'd be curious to knowwhat the users or the use case is for it.
It sounds like you use it on the CLIwhen you're working on web apps that need
a lightning node and it makes it easy.
Stephen DeLorme (45:51):
Yeah, totally.
because like, I mean, I, I was teachinga lightning workshop this past weekend.
I set up Phoenix D, LNBits.
I had the whole class using that,I think, uh, L tor, the project
that, um, won the lightning trackat the Bitcoin 2024 last year.
The guy who made that one, I think NickTi, think, used PhoenixD for that as well.
It's like a Tor network that you payover lightning and, Yeah, he just, it
(46:12):
was, you know, like super easy, youknow, download it and run the binary.
So I think for developers it'slike a super easy, you know, quick
install, but depends on your use case.
Jordan Bravo (46:22):
Cool.
Okay.
This whole topic of lightning in generaland running your own lightning node and
all the different use cases and extensionsoftware that goes in conjunction
with lightning is a really deep topic.
We've only just scratched the surfacehere today, so if you are interested
in knowing anything particularfurther, please let us know.
(46:43):
You can do that via Boostor you can email us.
And we will be getting amatrix room coming soon.
I'm gonna keep plugging that andlet you know when it is actually
available and how you can access that.
All right.
We are now gonna get into user feedback.
We had somebody comment on theepisode on mobile operating
(47:08):
systems and @shaigluskin1225says, Jordan, "Great video, but
you got one thing wrong regardingpurchasing used slash refurbished.
There is a difference between carrierunlocked and factory unlocked.
For example, let's say I boughta Pixel 7 from ATT on a plan.
(47:29):
It's factory locked and carrier locked.
Once I paid it off in full, I canrequest carrier unlocking from ATT.
Once accomplished, the phone is nowusable with other carriers and on
used sites will be listed as unlocked.
But you won't be able to unlockthe bootloader and install
GrapheneOS on that phone.
(47:50):
The setting for "OEM unlocking"is permanently grayed out on any
phone that was ever factory locked.
The only used pixels that will workare ones that were carrier unlocked
when they were originally purchased.
If they were ever carrier locked,then the phone is factory locked
against unlocking the bootloader.
Used sites don't tell you whetherthe phone is factory unlocked.
(48:13):
Only that it is carrier unlocked.
So in most cases, one will need to buya new pixel that is carrier unlocked
in order to install GrapheneOS."
Okay, so if I'm understandingthis feedback correctly, there's
kind of two levels of unlocking.
And when you go to a, a used sitesuch as Swappa, which is what
(48:36):
I discussed in that episode on,on, uh, mobile operating systems.
If, if it says unlocked, that's onlyreferring to carrier unlocked, but they
actually will not have any way of, oftelling you whether it's factory unlocked.
And in order to be able to unlock thebootloader to flash something like
GrapheneOS and then relock it and needa phone that has factory unlocked,
(48:59):
carrier unlocked is not enough.
Does that sound like what this?
Stephen DeLorme (49:03):
Yeah.
Jordan Bravo (49:03):
ShaiGlueskin is saying?
Stephen DeLorme (49:05):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Jordan Bravo (49:06):
Okay.
Well, I did not know that.
Great feedback.
Thank you for writing in andletting us know about that.
So I guess the takeaway there is makesure you're getting a factory unlocked
phone, and if you are buying it used,you have to kind of guess or it's
sort of a crapshoot because they'renot gonna make that clear upfront.
Stephen DeLorme (49:27):
Yeah.
I guess if you were like buying itfrom a friend or something, then,
then you would be able to determinethat upfront when you're buying it.
So, and maybe, maybe to refine thatslightly, it's that, you know, if, if
you're planning on buying a used phone inorder to, you know, put Graphos on there,
then you need to be able to see the phoneand verify that it's actually factory
(49:50):
unlocked, you know, before you make thepurchase, which you can do in person with
your friends, you can't always do that,uh, with one of these swapping sites.
Jordan Bravo (49:59):
Right?
And if you want to know how to doit, go to grapheneos.org, under
their installation instructions.
They're gonna walk you throughhow to unlock the bootloader.
And in that first step, you'll,you'll be able to go to that option.
If the option is grayed out,you know that it's locked.
And you can't unlock it.
If it's, if you are able todo it, then you're good to
(50:21):
go and it's factory unlocked.
Stephen DeLorme (50:24):
Cool.
Jordan Bravo (50:26):
Alright.
Thanks everybody andwe'll see you next time.
Stephen DeLorme (50:30):
Catch you later.
Hey, thanks for listening.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
If you want to learn more aboutanything that we discussed, you can
look for links in the show notes thatshould be in your podcast player, or
you can go to atlbitlab.com/podcast.
On a final note, if you foundthis information useful and you
want to help support us, you canalways send us a tip in Bitcoin.
(50:54):
Your support really helps us so that wecan keep bringing you content like this.
All right.
Catch you later.
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